Online Journal of the Hudson Valley Coalition for Life.
"Every human being is called to solidarity in a world battling between life and death" - Ignacio Ellacuria, Jesuit martyr in El Salvador

July 30, 2010

The public demonstration with about 40 people was led by Rabbi Noson Shmeul Leiter of Torah Jews for Decency and was held at Senator Schumer's office in Peekskill. They called on Senator Schumer to filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan.

Channel 12 had an almost four minute feature Sunday evening, at the beginning of all their news hours from 5 o'clock onwards. Eileen Peterson from Rockland County helped organize.

The video at the end is the one we made, not the cable 12 video. Channel 12 had an excellent interview on site with Rabbi Leiter.

Rabbi Leiter

The man with the sign in Hebrew was also interviewed by channel 12, and appeared in the story on the news.

Did you know that Warren Buffett has given $3 billion—yes, three billion dollars—to promote abortion here in the U.S. and around the world? Often, government officials in developing countries are under pressure to control population in order to qualify for international aid. So they pressure women in the villages to get abortions. Western Europe is especially strong in pushing for abortion in these developing countries.

The Times article quotes Buffett’s late wife telling interviewer Charlie Rose “Warren feels that women all over the world get shortchanged. That’s why he’s so pro-choice.” The article tells us after Susan Thompson Buffett moved from Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco in 1977, she and Warren remained close. She even introduced Warren to the woman he has lived with since 1978. This threesome would send out Christmas cards together, the Times informs us.

Warren Buffett strongly backed Barack Obama. On January 23, 2009, President Obama’s first official act was to open the sluice gates of taxpayer support for abortion worldwide. The U.S. has now joined those exerting pressure on women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We may be going broke, but Planned Parenthood is still making a killing.

>>>>>>

Is it, therefore, any surprise to learn that Warren Buffett has joined the club of billionaires who pressure black and brown women around the world to kill their unborn children? Planned Parenthood is the favorite charity of many billionaires.

The operative language starts on page 12, where it says: "The benefit package will include the following core of specific services …" followed by a long list that includes, on page 14, "only abortions and contraceptives that satisfy the requirements of 18 Pa.C.S. § 3204-3206 and 35 P.S. §§10101, 10103-10105." Those are the sections of Pennsylvania law that cover abortion. So — when all the verbal smoke is cleared away — the solicitation states that the program "will" cover "only" abortions that are legal. That doesn’t leave out much.

The first section cited, for instance (Section 3204), allows abortions that a physician deems "necessary … in the light of all factors (physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age) relevant to the well-being of the woman." The only abortions that the state law forbids a doctor from finding "necessary" are those "sought solely because of the sex of the unborn child."

Pennsylvania officials are now in essence saying it was all a mistake. Abortions will now "only" be paid for in case of rape, incest or mother's life in danger. Still horrible, BUT it could have been abortion on demand if not for NRTL vigilance.

This long article is NY Times-reader friendly, as are most of the comments, but read it anyway. It is difficult. It is now all about "terminations" and a better business model. The push for and expanded corruption of the medical profession is fully on parade. The rationalizations are numerous, but the realities of abortion cannot be denied, and this article talks about them only by alluding to their most repulsive aspects. The most powerful and most disturbingly tragic paragraph involves a pregnant doctor performing an abortion.

Let's pray for us all, and especially for those that participate in this immoral, barbaric practice and seek to call it "health care". We ache for the many post-abortive women and for this article's subtle attempt to make "abortionist" a greater women-friendly medical career choice.

A note. Abortion is referred to unequivocally as a surgical procedure. How many young women and underage girls go for one without understanding this is surgery, and without parental knowledge or consent?

There is a reason most doctors are embarrassed to say they are abortionists. Attempts to blame it on anything but what abortion is ring hollow, especially in this piece and despite the typical fear-mongering appearance in it of clinic protesters (whose presence discourages a man from retrieving his lunch from his car), and murderers/bombers (paragraph #1 transitions from a talked about "exposure and humiliation" pro-life tactic to abortion-provider murders). And of course, the inclusion of Catholics who here are para-participants - bending their consciences into pretzels to avoid the obvious conflict of working in the medical practice of an abortionist. The doctor's handling and billing of abortion patients himself, rather than involving his unwilling office assistants, is praised by them. It is, however, difficult for LifeNet to be objective at the author's focus on sensitivity to an office assistant's conscience, while mitigating the impending doom of the unborn child next door.

July 15, 2010

This notice regularly comes to us from our good friend Rosemary Tirone and the Our Lady of the Rosary Church Respect Life Ministry that has a very active pro life presence through Life Chain witness. Summertime is a great time of year to witness for life. Why not join them on July 18th?

Purpose: Respect Life Ministry seeks to educate the public by presenting a powerful, compassionate pro life message of protecting and enhancing human life from conception through natural death.

What is Life Chain: A peaceful, prayerful, legal and non-confrontational presence. Es una presencis pacifica, de oracion, legal y no confrontacion.

Co-chairperson Judith Anderson addressed the Westchester County Board of Legislators on Monday evening, July 12, about the celebration of the 90th anniversary (August 26) of women’s voting rights. Her comments follow:

“Good evening Chairman Jenkins and members of the Board. As co-chair with Susan Konig and Regina Riely, I am pleased to speak before you once again about the 9th Annual Westchester Women’s Equality Day Reformed that will have its annual celebration this year on Friday, August 13, here at the County Board Michaelian Building. We will commemorate 90 years of women being recognized with full citizenship through the granting of voting rights. Ninety years – quite a milestone! We, as always, extend an invitation to all members of the Board, but especiallyits women: Legislators Myers, Williams, Spreckman and Marcotte. We especially thank the Hon. Gordon A. Burrows who has been our sponsor for many years and the Hon. John G. Testa, also a sponsor this year. We thank them for attending and look forward to working with them this year on Board business, as well as with Sheila Marcotte. We hope she will join us each year, and for many years to come.

Our 2010 honoree is Dr. Catherine Hickey, Yonkers multi-award winning, life-long educator and recently retired Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of New York. Our theme this year is ‘Calling Youth to Excellence in Education and Life’.

Women’s voices have been heard in the public square these last 90 years, and so what we have become as a society rests equally with women as with men - as it should be. The four women who sit on the County Board of Legislators are testaments to the unique voice and perspectives that womenbring to the great debates of our time. When we speak of our young people in particular, we seek for them parents, heroes and heroines, teachers and mentors that inspire and call them to the highest standards in the classroom, and in the living of life itself.

The day’s program will challenge women on this occasion of reflection on the powerful words and actions of our most outspoken feminist foremothers – Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony – who did not see the advancement of women or activism as opposed to motherhood; quite the opposite. Elizabeth Stanton was known to raise a flag outside of her home with the birth of each of her five children – shocking her neighbors in Seneca Falls surely as when she fought with Mott and Anthony for women’s voting rights! Join us on August 13. It will be another grand celebration!”

WASHINGTON (July 13, 2010) – The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new “high-risk” insurance program under a provision of the federal health care legislation enacted in March — and has quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of Governor Edward Rendell (D) under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania.

The high-risk pool program is one of the new programs created by the sweeping health care legislation (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) that President Obama signed into law on March 23. The law authorizes $5 billion in federal funds for the program, which will cover as many as 400,000 people when it is implemented nationwide.

“The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million in federal tax funds, which we’ve discovered will pay for insurance plans that cover any legal abortion,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states. “This is just the first proof of the phoniness of President Obama’s assurances that federal funds would not subsidize abortion — but it will not be the last.”

An earlier version of the health care legislation, passed by the House of Representatives in November 2009, contained a provision (the Stupak-Pitts Amendment) that would have prevented federal funds from subsidizing abortion or insurance coverage of abortion in any of the programs created by the bill, including the high-risk pool program. But President Obama opposed that pro-life provision, and it was not included in the bill later approved by both houses and signed into law. An executive order signed by the President on March 24, 2010 did not contain effective barriers to federal funding of abortion, and did not even mention the high-risk pool program.

“President Obama successfully opposed including language in the bill to prevent federal subsidies for abortions, and now the Administration is quietly advancing its abortion-expanding agenda through administrative decisions such as this, which they hope will escape broad public attention,” Johnson said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has emphasized that the high-risk pool program is a federal program and that the states will not incur any cost. On May 11, 2010, in a letter to Democratic and Republican congressional leaders on implementation of the new law, DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote that “states may choose whether and how they participate in the program, which is funded entirely by the federal government.”

Details of the high-risk pool plans for most states are not yet available. But on June 28, Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario (a member of the appointed cabinet of Governor Edward Rendell, a Democrat) issued a press release announcing that the federal Department of Health and Human Services had approved his agency’s proposal for implementing the new program in Pennsylvania. “The state will receive $160 million to set up the program, which will provide coverage to as many as 5,600 people between now and 2014,” according to the release. “The plan’s benefit package will include preventive care, physician services, diagnostic testing, hospitalization, mental health services, prescription medications and much more, with subsidized premiums of $283 a month.”

The section on abortion (see page 14) asserts that “elective abortions are not covered.” However, that statement proves to be a red herring, because the operative language does not define “elective.” Rather, the proposal specifies that the coverage “includes only abortions and contraceptives that satisfy the requirements of” several specific statutes, the most pertinent of which is 18 Pa. C.S. § 3204, which says that an abortion is legal in Pennsylvania (consistent with Roe v. Wade) if a single physician believes that it is “necessary” based on “all factors (physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age) relevant to the well-being of the woman.” Indeed, the cited statute provides only a single circumstance in which an abortion prior to 24 weeks is NOT permitted under the Pennsylvania statute: “No abortion which is sought solely because of the sex of the unborn child shall be deemed a necessary abortion.”

As a result, “Under the Rendell-Sebelius plan, federal funds will subsidize coverage of abortion performed for any reason, except sex selection,” said NRLC’s Johnson. “The Pennsylvania proposal conspicuously lacks language that would prevent funding of abortions performed as a method of birth control or for any other reason, except sex selection — and the Obama Administration has now approved this.”

A group of Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives who initially withheld support from the federal health care bill, because of concerns about pro-abortion effects, cited President Obama’s March 24 executive order in justifying their votes to pass the bill over objections from NRLC and other pro-life groups, which argued that the executive order did not contain effective barriers to federal subsidies for abortion. As USA Todayreported on March 25, “Both sides in the abortion debate came to a rare agreement on Wednesday: The executive order on abortion signed by President Obama, they said, was basically meaningless. ‘A transparent political fig leaf,’ according to the National Right to Life Committee’s Douglas Johnson. ‘A symbolic gesture,’ said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.”

July 13, 2010

I must admit, sometimes in this abortion debate I feel like I am floating on the periphery, looking on, while the world dissects and argues about abortion, and concerning the unborn and the women who have them.

For me, as a post-abortive mother, it is much more personal. It is about reclaiming my child.

It is about relationships, family, and my son, who is now “living in the Lord” (Gospel of Life, JPII).

NY State Assemblyman Greg Ball, now running for State Senate, along with the head of Westchester Putnam Center for Life Alan Mehldau, and Greg's campaign manager Jim Coleman.

Sr. Mary Ann Maceda OSF, received a special presentation - a picture of the huge number of people - mostly students! who she organized to the January March for Life in Washington. Sister has done a stellar job working in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, reaching out to the Hispanic population. Next year Sister will have her own bus for the March for Life.

Ingrid Climis of St. Patrick's of Bedford, received the Joseph Frankenberry award for her longstanding prolife work.

Monsignor Philip Rielly, founder of the Helper's of God's Precious Infants was the featured speaker. He spoke of his over forty years in the prolife movement, and the spread of the Helper's throughout the world.

July 06, 2010

Organized for the Knights of Columbus Westchester-Putnam Conference, the Mass was held on Saturday morning, June 26, at Holy Name of Mary Church in Croton-on-Hudson. Approximately half the attendees were members of the parish, and half were K of C members and their families and other volunteers "in the field" for various life issues. K of C Council 4730 of Holy Name of Mary, Knights Richard Fuerst and Jim Moore were local organizers.

There was a Knights honor guard and Fr. Michael Keane, pastor of Holy Name, was the celebrant.

Coffee and refreshments were served after the Mass.

Kudos to Holy Name of Mary Council 4730 for organizing and hosting this Eucharistic celebration of life!

“In the same way that many opponents of slavery and racism have failed to apply their principles to the question of women’s rights, so feminist writers have a peculiarly dense blind spot about the unborn. No argument in favour of freely available abortion is tenable in the light of feminist ideals and principles. And all of them bear an alarming resemblance to the arguments used by men to justify discrimination against women.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who is not pro-life, says she, too, will vote no on Kagan on the Senate floor.

"As Ms. Kagan acknowledges, the cases that come before the Supreme Court are difficult in nature and not always answered by precedent. Over the past week Ms. Kagan has given the American people hardly any idea about how she will approach these difficult cases," the senator said.

"Her responses to many of the questions posed by my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee were clever and graceful but not terribly revealing and in many cases evasive," Murkowski added.

The Alaska senator also expressed hesitation because Kagan shows little judicial or legal experience preparing her for serving on the nation's highest court.

“I did not support Ms. Kagan’s nomination to be Solicitor General of the United States because I did not think she had the requisite experience for the job. It is not essential that a Supreme Court nominee have experience as a judge but those who lacked that experience had substantial experience in the practice of law," she said.

She concluded, " Kagan has spent the bulk of her career as an academic, a university administrator and policy advisor. For the reasons I have cited here, I plan to oppose her nomination when it comes before the Senate."

McConnell's and Murkowski's opposition come on the heels of pro-life Sen. Orrin Hatch becoming the first member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to announce his opposition to Kagan.